THE RIGHT STUFF (1983)

Writer/director Philip Kaufman was hitting the sweet-spot of his maddeningly unproductive career when he took Tom Wolfe’s book on the ‘Mercury’ astronauts, encircled it with longing glances at Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier*, and galvanized it all into a Pop epic. Long, but fabulous, it’s beautifully paced (or was on the big screen, home viewing requires a touch more concentration), its commercial failure remains a mystery. (Was it the quick shifts in tone, from inspirational to snarky, ironic/satiric before going full heroic?) The cast is a spot-on miracle, from Sam Shepard’s Gary Cooper of a Chuck Yeager (ridiculously sexy against Barbara Hershey), to the Mercury 7 (Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Scott Glenn & Ed Harris standouts . . . and so young!). Even the wives, loyal & frustrated, are deftly particularized for a change; plus a breakthrough perf from a strikingly funny Jeff Goldblum. With production design & Caleb Deschanel’s lensing nailing period verisimilitude, it’s wildly nostalgic for any LIFE Magazine subscriber. The one chink in the armor is Bill Conti’s less than stellar score. Nothing wrong using real Holst & Debussy, but his own music is more like ‘The Derivative Stuff,’ including a main theme Glazanov might have claimed.* But not enough to hurt things, the film’s too playful & exciting to be held down.

LINK/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Producers Robert Chartoff & Irwin Winkler had used Conti on ROCKY/’76. (This film got him a payback Oscar®.) He’s an unimaginably square choice for Kaufman, lifting Holst & Debussy when he’s not tweaking Glazanov for an ‘original’ main theme. Here's Glazanov: The Seasons:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlKuF4tgccM

And here's Conti: Going half-speed for his RIGHT STUFF Main Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ges3kx7hoUQ

DOUBLE-BILL/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Everything involving Yeager & the cadre of speed demon test pilots plays like a newfangled Howard Hawks flyboy pic. Try ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS/’39.

WALT DISNEY: ON THE FRONT LINES (1941-45)

Fascinating & unique, this 2-disc set of WWII Disney animated shorts, plus the feature film VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER/’43, entertains and grabs you by the era. The shorts come divided into war-themed theatrical releases with popular Disney characters (Donald Duck, Pluto, Goofy, Chip & Dale), along with more straightforward instructional fare, some aimed North to Canada, others looking to the Southern Americas. The remastering is exceptional, everything pops off the screen, with seemingly bland topics (hygiene, food, taxes) given spoonfuls of sugar to make them didactic fun. A final section has some truly remarkable shorts including EDUCATION FOR DEATH (about Nazi-indoctrinated schoolkids) and REASON AND EMOTION, a near test run for the recent INSIDE OUT/’15. The feature film (VICTORY) is more artifact of its day, but hardly without historical & graphic interest. An imaginatively rendered lecture/proposal from author Alexander P. De Seversky (with boldly stylized animated examples to make the argument), fronted by a more cartoony prologue (History of Aviation). His theory?; switch the war from a ground to a passing game (a football analogy the artists surprisingly don’t pick up on); and a plea to unify Army & Navy Air Forces into their own separate unit. Like everything in here, it’s both entertaining & informative. And those animated shorts seem less directly aimed at kids then would soon become Disney norm as the cultural Zeitgeist began shifting from Disney’s pioneering art to the antiauthoritarian cast of characters led by Bugs Bunny @ Warners.

DOUBLE-BILL: With AIR POWER dedicated to military aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell, try Gary Cooper in Otto Preminger’s reasonably effective THE COURT-MARSHALL OF BILLY MITCHELL/’55.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Note the short shrift given to Charles Lindbergh (newly controversial/unpopular as a war-time isolationist) in the animated history of aviation segment.

THE CAREY TREATMENT (1972)

Everybody was running away from this one. Michael Crichton used a pseudonym on his novel; award-winning scripters Harriet Frank & Irving Ravetch, working with tv specialist John D. F. Black, jointly became the fictitious James P. Bonner; and director/co-producer Blake Edwards, after trying to back out, failed at having his name removed. Studio interference drove them to it (a typically crisis-ridden M-G-M), and for sure the film hopscotches thru its medical murder mystery to unsatisfying result, but not without a certain flair & oddball charm. James Coburn, cool, laid-back pathologist at a top Boston Med Center, falls into hospital politics, romance with dietician Jennifer O’Neill and investigating an illegal abortion gone wrong pinned on surgeon pal James Hong by hard-nosed detective Pat Hingle. (In truth, Hingle has a rather blobby nose.) Coburn’s interactions as amateur sleuth with the crusty Hingle are the best thing in here, they could have done a series together. There’s also some fun to be had ticking off the mores & attitudes on display of early 1970s middle-aged hipster lifestyle. (Hint: both amusing and embarrassing.) Edwards may have been miserable on the shoot, but he can’t help but turn out a slippery smooth product, even when forced to have Coburn scare the truth out of two lying gals as the wind up to Act Two and Act Three. A bit more variety might have helped hide the narrative seams & lacunae.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Edwards book-ended this non-starter with two of his least appreciated pics, low-pitched Western WILD ROVERS/’71 and ruminative spy romance THE TAMARIND SEED/’74, both still waiting to be rediscovered.  (Since the restored Director's Cut of WILD ROVERS appeared, it has been rediscovered.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/06/wild-rovers.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-tamarind-seed-1974.html

CONVOY (1978)

All but unemployable due to health and addiction issues, to say nothing of the commercial & critical reception of his last four films (including a masterpiece in BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA/’74), Sam Peckinpah signed up to direct this concept-looking-for-a-script package. (It had a hit song & the C.B. radio craze behind it.*) There’s something immensely sad seeing Peckinpah ape SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT/’77, even one with existential/nihilistic tendencies. (Or is it WHITE LINE FEVER/’75 meets BILLY JACK/’71?) The story, such as it is, has Ernest Borgnine’s Southern Sheriff out for revenge against a gaggle of truckers after he triggers a big bar fight with a racial insult. For some inexplicable reason, the truckers’ rebellion starts a Statewide populist uprising and scores of big rigs join in. The whole shebang doesn’t make a lick of sense, but at least some of the wrecks are well-staged. (But by whom? One dandy sequence has two big rigs making a sandwich out of a cop's car). On the other hand, the big fight scene that initiates all the to-do, which Peckinpah belabored over for a week, is like an inert parody of one his classic violence ballets, with pointless slo-mo punches & Hee-Haw comic reaction shots. Some of this is harmless fun, or is before an appalling cop-out of a tag-ending. With Ali MacGraw not quite so bad as you recall, Kris Kristofferson flaunting a long, lean torso and lenser Harry Stradling Jr fetishizing it between equally eye-catching vistas of trucks stretching to the horizon. All accompanied by a feeling of terrible cinematic waste.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Jonathan Demme’s much-praised/little-seen HANDLE WITH CARE (aka CITIZEN’S BAND)/’77 found a way to develop the C.B. radio craze into humanist comedy.

SPLIT SECOND (1953)

THE PETRIFIED FOREST meets . . . THE ATOMIC BOMB!! No joke, that’s the deal in this Dick Powell directed hostage drama, his first megging. Stephen McNally finds a few unexpected nooks & crannies playing a vicious escaped killer who holes up in an old, deserted town right next to Ground Zero in tomorrow’s nuclear test. Yikes! He’s got two prison pals in tow, one with a bullet in his gut, and a gaggle of hostages he’s picked up on the way: including Reno-bound Alexis Smith, newsman Keith Andes, old prospector Arthur Hunnicutt, plus Jan Sterling’s drifter of easy virtue & Richard Egan, arriving late as Smith’s estranged husband, both in standout perfs. It all looks & plays a bit like '50s 'Golden Age' Television, though not in a bad way, and when the bomb hits, appears to incorporate some actuality footage seen in various documentaries about early nuclear tests. (A pre-fabricated ‘ghost’ town gets it.) The times were a’changin’ then and the script seems blissfully unaware of the extent of nuclear Fall-Out.* Radio announcements suggest locals go to their roofs to see the FLASH from the device. Yikes!

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Nuclear Fall-Out indeed! Powell’s next as director, THE CONQUEROR/’56, was shot infamously close to a real-life nuclear testing zone and is now often cited in the long-term cancer prognoses for each of it’s four top-billed stars: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz & Agnes Moorehead.

THE ROBE (1953)

From an article with ROBE director Henry Koster fawning over 20th/Fox’s new WideScreen format:

With CinemaScope, a director is at last free of the camera and has an unparalleled chance to demonstrate his ability to move actors logically and dramatically. Now, more than ever before in motion pictures, he has room in which to work. He no longer has to worry about cramped action because of the hampering restrictions imposed on him by the camera. Now he doesn’t have to worry about ‘dolly shots’ and ‘pan shots’ and ‘boom shots’ and all the other camera movements; he is free to concentrate on the chief task of drawing superb performances from his players. (New Screen Techniques/Quigley Publishing 1953)

It goes on like this, a paean to the nullification of film technique. And, true to his word, there’s an hour & a half of pageant-like staging before he tries an action scene (a none too convincing sword fight), and a remarkable two hour wait before we get a close-up. In Koster’s defense, the article was almost certainly generated by the publicity department (he may have read it), and the limited ‘scope lenses available to cinematographer Leon Shamroy were restricting. (Curved frame edges, false depth of field impression, CinemaScope engendered ‘mumps’ on full-face close-ups, significant grain deterioration on optical printer effects.) At least film-goers didn’t get those 3D headaches. And the film? It’s not too far removed from the recent QUO VADIS/’51, with a few gender swaps, but it’s still early Christians in Rome, a couple of daring rescues, religious conversions, martyrdom . . . and that eponymous robe. Who knew Jesus offered salvation and a McGuffin? Richard Burton’s career boosting perf now looks very mannered; everyone around him defers to his grandeur and come off the better for it. And while Koster doesn’t hold to total renunciation of cinematic technique, he still runs the sorriest rescue e’re put on film as Burton & Co. tiptoe in to save Victor Mature from a Roman torture chamber.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Some of the very early CinemaScope pics really took flight on those huge movie palace screens. The sheer size put them over in a manner even the largest home video unit can’t accomplish. Still, this one’s awfully stiff.

DOUBLE-BILL: The quickly made follow up, DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS/’54 is sillier, shorter, a little looser.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Composer Alfred Newman reuses two major music cues out of his own score for THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME/’39. First in the rescue sequence mentioned above he makes like Korngold, then right at the end, with a magnificent 1 minute Hallelujah he first used to back Quasimodo as he saved Esmeralda. Except, he may not have written this brief, stupendous music cue which was also claimed by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ernst Toch. Studio violinist Louis Kaufman, who played all over town before switching to a concert career, supported Toch’s claim. But equally damning is how Newman reused the theme at least two times, like a dog pissing on something to claim ownership. THE ROBE slightly rearranges the cue and it’s also found in THE SONG OF BERNADETTE/’43. Here’s a link to a modern recording of the original arrangements. Rescue sequence at 12:20; Hallelujah at 24;40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ep6aaABpQ

PURSUED (1947)

This unusual Raoul Walsh Western, from a psychologically twisted original screenplay by Niven Busch, has the mood & tone of one of those relocated Greek Tragedies Eugene O’Neill set in 1800s New England. But shorter. Still pretty talky though, which doesn’t always play into Walsh’s strengths for action & slow burn violence. Robert Mitchum is very strong as an orphan boy, raised by Judith Anderson with her two as one of her own. But as Mitchum grows up, trouble comes his way from inside & out. INSIDE the ranch, he’s destined to marry adopted sister Teresa Wright (too nice for the role’s neurotic sexual angle*) and to grapple for ownership rights with a jealous adopted brother carrying an incestuous chip on his shoulder. OUTSIDE the ranch, one-armed Dean Jagger is waiting to have his revenge for some unspeakable past family incident Mitchum can only recall in fitful dreams. (You know it’s plenty bad since Jagger’s missing arm functions as a castration substitute.) It’s all put together with tremendous brio by Walsh and with staggering cinematography by James Wong Howe, heavy on various infrared shooting techniques. (Look close for a thrill of an edit as a window shade is pulled down and an armed man comes in on the cut.) Max Steiner’s score is a bit oblivious to what’s going on under the surface, and a few soundstage exteriors hurt the cause, but the film is just too intriguing to shake off.

DOUBLE-BILL:  The sexual tension Teresa Wright can’t quite summon is all over DUEL IN THE SUN/’46, from the novel by this film's author Niven Busch. But Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND/’45, with its big psychological mystery ‘reveal,’ also comes into play. Both those films produced by psychiatrist-addicted David O. Selznick.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *But if Teresa Wright is wrong for the role, who’d be right? Barbara Stanwyck?, perfect but too mature in 1947. Anne Baxter?, Oscar’d that year for RAZOR’S EDGE; Susan Hayward (from SMASHED/’47); or Gloria Grahame (in CROSSFIRE/’47), both earning Oscar noms. Any ideas?

A FOOL THERE WAS (1915)

Theda Bara was a vamping sensation in this cautionary tale, stealing happy husbands from hearth & home; sucking them dry; moving on to the next victim. And Fox Films knew what they had, sticking Bara into ten more films that year, with legit directors like Herbert Brenon & Raoul Walsh, all now lost. Only FOOL, from little known helmer Frank Powell, survives, but it’s probably enough; when you've seen one disdainful look from Bara, you've seen them all. (Even if Powell’s aversion to anything but medium-full shots keeps them from having a proper effect.) It’s really rather an odd little film, skipping from shipboard meeting to Italian debauch without stopping for dancing, dinner or courtship. Instead, we get occasional title cards to remind us that it’s ‘Six Months Later;’ or ‘One Week Later.’ We only see the illicit couple having a perfectly lousy time of it; whatever was the attraction? The best moments show up early, as when Bara’s spurned lover suicides on an ocean liner she’s taking solely to follow her latest target. She even insists on positioning her deck chair directing on top of the blood-stained wood to be near her new mark. Quite the ghoulish touch. At least the film avoids a late moral awakening/redemption for the philandering husband to reunite with his family. An uncompromising touch that probably helped make this one stick.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Greta Garbo’s early Hollywood films perfected this man-devouring character. FLESH AND THE DEVIL/’27 is the best known, but try the deliriously sinful THE TEMPTRESS/’26, with normally staid megger Fred Niblo brought to a boil. (And in excellent shape on a TCM-Archives DVD collection of Garbo Silents.)

BLAST OF SILENCE (1961)

Before heading to L.A. and a life directing vapid tv shows (BRADY BUNCH; CHARLIE’S ANGELS); Brooklyn-born Allen Baron somehow managed to write, direct & take the lead in this sharp, micro-budgeted crime pic. Often lumped with early John Cassevettes, the film is a better match with the earlier streetwise films of Morris Engel, like LITTLE FUGITIVE/’53, in both location work & indie manners; its ‘60s Yuletide street scenes nicely caught by producer/lenser Merrill Brody. And hardly a trace of Cassevettes’ house-style Method Acting Exercising from the semi-pro cast. Baron, looking like a junior George C. Scott, plays a Cleveland-based hitman on a job in Manhattan taking out a mid-level mob guy. But casing the joint leaves him too much free time and he runs into an old school pal from orphanage days; and worse, the guy’s sister he once had a crush on. It throws him off his professional routine. A bit thin, even at 80 minutes, Baron piles on pulpy authorial narration as filler, and it’s pretty ripe stuff.* But the film has something good going on most of the time, and a tasty jazz score to carry you to the next downbeat location when it doesn’t.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: *Narration read by an uncredited Lionel Stander and written by Waldo Salt under a pseudonym, both men BlackListed at the time. Salt, working under his own name, would gain an Oscar® working similar territory on MIDNIGHT COWBOY/’69.